Part 5

Not Monica, at least. Conrad had been to her as the evil genius of one crisis of her life—of more had she but known it. She had said in her heart that she could never forgive him, that she would never voluntarily look upon his face again, and yet here he lay dying beneath her roof, and she was with him. She could not, when it came to the point, leave him to die alone, with only a stranger beside him. He might never know, his eyes would probably never open to the light of this world again; but she should know, and in years to come, when time should, even more than now, have softened all things to her, she knew that she should be glad to think she had shown mercy and compassion towards one in death, who had shown himself in life her bitterest foe.

Very solemn thoughts filled her mind as she sat in that quiet room, in which a strong young life was quickly ebbing away. Would the sin-stained soul pass into the shadowy land of the hereafter in silence and darkness, without one moment for preparation—perhaps for repentance? Would some slight gleam of consciousness be granted? would it be vouchsafed to him to wake once more in this world, to give some sign to the earnest, silent watcher whether he had tried to make his peace with God before he was called to his last account?

The lamp burned low—flickered in its socket. That strange blue _film_, the first forerunner of the coming day, stole solemnly into that quiet room. Suddenly Monica became aware that Conrad’s eyes were open, and fixed intently upon her face. She rose and stood beside him.

“You are here?” he said, in a strange low voice. “I felt that you would hear me call—and would come. I knew I could not—die—till I had told you all.”

She did not know how far he was conscious. His words were strange, but his eye was calm and quiet. He took the stimulant she held to his lips. It gave him an access of strength.

“Where am I?” he asked.

“At Trevlyn.”

A strange look flitted over his face.

“Ah! I remember now—I fell. And I have been brought to Trevlyn—to die—and you, Monica, are with me. It is well.”

She hardly knew what to say, or how to answer the awed look in those dying eyes. He bent a keen glance upon her.

“Will it be soon?” he asked; and she knew that the “it” meant death. She could not deceive him. She bent her head in assent, as she said:

“Very soon, I think.”

His eyes never left her face. His own face moved not a muscle, but its expression changed moment by moment in a way she could not understand.

“There is not much time left, Monica. Sit down by me where I can see you. I must make a confession to you before I die.”

“Not to me, Conrad,” said Monica gently. “Confess your sins to our Father in Heaven. He alone can grant forgiveness; and His mercies are very great.”

“Forgiveness!” the word was spoken with an intensity of bitterness that startled Monica. The horror was deepening each moment in his eyes. She began to feel that it was reflected in her own. What did it all mean?

“God is very merciful,” she said gently, commanding herself so that he should not see her agitation.

“You do not know,” he interrupted almost fiercely. “Wait till I have told you all.”

“Why should you tell me, Conrad? I know much of your past life. I know that you have sinned. Ask God’s forgiveness before it is too late. It is against Him, not me, that you have sinned.”

“Against Him _and_ you,” he answered with a grave intensity of manner that plainly showed him master of his faculties. “Listen to me, Monica—you shall listen! I cannot carry the guilty secret to the grave. Death looks me in the face—he holds me by the hand, but he will not let me leave this world till I have told you all.”

A sort of horror fell upon Monica. She neither spoke nor moved.

“Monica, turn your face this way. I want to see it. I must see it. You remember the night, a year ago, when—your husband—went away?”

She bent her head in silence.

“Did you know that I was there—in the boat with him?”

She raised her head, and looked at him speechlessly.

“I was there,” he said, “but nobody knew, nobody suspected. I was on the shore before you. I saw you cling to him. I heard every word that passed. I think a demon entered into my soul as you kissed each other that night. ‘Kiss her!’ I said, ‘kiss her—you shall never kiss her again!’ Monica, I think sometimes I am mad—I was mad, possessed, that night. I had no will, no power to resist the evil spirit within me. He went down to the boat. I followed. In the black darkness nobody saw me swing myself in. You know the story the men told when they came back—it was all true enough. The crew of the sinking vessel had been rescued. Your husband left the boat to help the little lad. I followed him, unknown to all. He had already handed the boy into the boat when I came stealthily up to him; the boat had swung round, and for a moment was lost in darkness before it could be brought up again. This was my chance. It was pitchy dark, and he did not see me, though I was close beside him. I had the great boat-hook in my hand; we were both sinking with the sinking vessel. I steadied myself, and brought the metal end of the weapon with all my strength upon his head. He sank without a cry. I saw his head, covered with blood, and his glassy eyes above the water for a moment—the sight has haunted me ever since—then I sprang into the boat. ‘All right!’ I shouted, and the men pulled off with a will, without a suspicion or a doubt. Almost before the boat reached the shore I sprang out, and vanished in the darkness before any one had seen me. My vow of vengeance was fulfilled. I murdered your husband Monica—do you understand?—I murdered him in cold blood! What have you to say to me?”

She sat still as a marble statue, her hands closely locked together. She spoke no word.

“I thought revenge would be sweet; but it has been bitter—bitter—bitter! I have known no peace night or day. I have been ceaselessly haunted by the sight of that ghastly face—ah, I see it now! Every time I lie down to sleep I am doomed to do that hideous deed again. I have fled time after time from the scene of my crime, only to be dragged back by a power I cannot resist. I knew that a terrible retribution would come; yet I could not keep away. And now—yes, it has come—more terrible than ever I pictured. I am dying—in his house—and you—his wife—are watching over me. Ah, it is frightful! Is there forgiveness with God for sin like mine? You say His mercies are great. Can they cover this hideous deed? Monica, can _you_ forgive?”

He spoke with the wild, passionate appeal of despair. The anguish and remorse in his face were terrible to see; but Monica did not speak. She sat rigid and still, as pale as death, her eyes glowing like living fire in the wild conflict of her feelings. This was terrible—too terrible to be borne.

“Monica, I am dying—dying! The shadows are closing round me. Ah, do not turn away! It is all so dark; if you desert me I am lost indeed! If you were dying you would understand. Monica, you say God is good—merciful. I have asked His pardon again and again for this black sin, and even as I pray it seems as if you—your pale, still face—rises ever between me and the forgiveness I crave. I read by this token that to you I must confess this blackest sin; of you I must ask pardon too. I have repented. I do repent. I would give my life to call him back. Monica, forgive—forgive! Have mercy upon a dying man. As you will one day ask pardon at God’s hands even for your blameless life, give me your pardon ere I die!”

Who shall estimate the struggle that raged in Monica’s soul during the brief moments that followed this appeal—moments that to her were like hours, years, for the concentrated passion of feeling that surged through them? She felt as if she had grown sensibly older, ere, white and shaken by the conflict, she won the victory over herself.

She rose and stood beside him.

“Conrad, I forgive you. May God forgive you as I do.”

A sudden light flashed into his dim eyes. The awful, unspeakable horror passed slowly away. The deep darkness lifted a little—a very little—and Monica saw that it was so.

“I think—you have—saved me,” he whispered, whilst the death damp gathered on his brow. “Monica, you will have your reward for this—I know it—I feel it. Ah! is this death? Monica—it is coming—teach me to pray—I cannot—I have forgotten—help me!”

“I will help you, Conrad. Say it after me. ‘Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven; Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our trespasses; As we forgive’——”

“‘As we forgive’——” Conrad broke off suddenly; a strange look of gladness, of relief, of comprehension, flashing over the face that had been so full of terror and anguish. “‘As we forgive’—and you have forgiven—then it may be that He will forgive too. I could not believe it before—now I can—God be merciful to me, a sinner!”

Those were his last words. Already his eyes were glazing. The hush as of the shadow of death was filling that dim room. Monica knelt beside the bed, a sense of deep awe upon her, praying with all the strength of her pure soul for the guilty, erring man—her husband’s murderer—dying beneath his roof.

And as she thus knelt and prayed, a sudden sense of her husband’s presence filled all her soul with an inexpressible, indescribable thrill of mingled rapture and awe. She trembled, and her heart beat thick and fast; whether she were in the spirit or out of the spirit she did not know. And then—in deep immeasurable distance, far, far away, and yet distinctly, sweetly clear—unmistakable—the sound of a voice—Randolph’s voice—thrilling through infinity of space:

“Monica! Monica! My wife!”

She started to her feet, quivering in every limb. Conrad’s eyes were fixed upon her with an inexplicable look of joy. Had he heard it too? What did it mean—that strange cry from the spirit world in this hour of death and dawn?

She leant over the dying man.

“Conrad,” she said, in a voice that was full of an emotion too deep for any but the simplest of words, “I forgive you—so does Randolph; and I think God has forgiven you too.”

The clear radiance of another day was shining upon the earth as the troubled, erring spirit was set free, and passed away into the great hereafter, whose secrets shall be read in God’s good time, when all but His Word shall have passed away.

Let us not judge him—for is there not joy with the angels in heaven over one sinner that repenteth?

Yes, all was over now: all the weary warfare of sin and strife; and with a calm majesty in death, that the beautiful face had never worn in life, Conrad Fitzgerald lay dead in Castle Trevlyn.

CHAPTER THE THIRTIETH.

LORD HADDON.

“And you forgave him, Monica, you forgave him? The man who had killed your husband?”

It was Beatrice who spoke, and she spoke with a sort of horror in her tone. Tom stood a little apart in the recess of the window, a heavy cloud upon his brow. Lord Haddon was leaning with averted face upon the high carved mantel-shelf.

They had all come over early to Trevlyn to hear the fate of the hapless man who had died in the night. Beatrice felt an unquenchable longing to know if he had spoken before he died—if by chance the terrible secret had escaped in delirium from his lips; and she had insisted on coming with her husband. Her brother, who had arrived unexpectedly the previous evening, had made one of the party. He was hungering for another sight of Monica, and Trevlyn seemed to draw him like a magnet.

Monica’s face had told a tale of its own when she had first appeared; and the whispered question on Beatrice’s lips:

“Did he speak, Monica? Did he say anything?” elicited a reply that led to explanations on both sides, rendering further reserve needless; and Monica told her tale with the quiet calmness of one who has too lately passed through some great mental conflict to be easily disturbed again.

But Beatrice, fiery, impetuous Beatrice, could not understand this calm. She was shaken by a tempest of excitement and wrath.

“You forgave him, Monica? Ah! how could you? Randolph’s murderer!”

“Yes, I forgave him.”

“You should not! You should not! It was not—it could not be right! Monica, I cannot understand you. I think you are made of stone!”

She said nothing; she smiled. That smile was only seen by Haddon. It thrilled him to his heart’s core.

“How came you to be with him at all?” said Tom, almost sternly. “It was not your duty to be there. It was no fit place for you.”

“I think my place is where there is sorrow and need and loneliness,” answered Monica, very gently. “He needed me—and I came to him.”

“He sent for you?”

“I think he did.”

“But you said——”

Monica lifted her hand; she rose to her feet, passing her hand across her brow.

“You would not understand, dear. There are some things, Beatrice, that you are very slow to learn. You know something of the mysteries of life, but you do not understand anything of those deeper mysteries of death. I have forgiven a dying man, who prayed forgiveness with his latest breath—and you look at me with horror.”

Beatrice gazed at Monica, but yet would not yield her point.

“Mercy can be carried too far——” but she could not say more, for the look upon Monica’s face brought a sudden sense of choking that would have made her voice falter had she attempted to proceed. Her brother’s murmured words, therefore, were now distinctly heard.

“Not in God’s sight, perhaps.”

Monica turned to him with a swift gesture inexpressibly sweet.

“Ah! you understand,” she said simply. “I am glad you have come just now, Haddon. I shall want help. Will you give it me?”

“I will do anything for you, and esteem it an honour.”

She looked at him steadily.

“Even if it is for one who—for the one who lies upstairs now—dead?”

Haddon bent his head.

“Even for him—at your bidding.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“I will take you home now, Beatrice,” said Tom, curtly. “We are not wanted here.”

Monica looked questioningly at him, as she gave him her hand, to see what this abruptness might signify. He returned her gaze with equal intensity.

“I believe you are an angel, Monica,” he said, lifting her hand for a moment to his lips; “but there are moments when fallen mortals like ourselves feel the angelic presence a little overpowering.”

Monica, as she had said, wanted the help of some man of business, as there was a good deal to be done in connection with Conrad’s sudden death: a good many trying formalities to be gone through, as well as much correspondence, and in Lord Haddon she found an able and willing assistant.

He saw much of Monica in those days. He was often at Trevlyn—hardly a day passed without his riding or driving across on some errand—and she was often at St. Maws herself, for Beatrice’s momentary flash of anger had been rapidly quenched in deep contrition and humility; and both she and her husband treated Monica with the sort of reverential tenderness that seemed to meet her now on all hands.

Lord Haddon watched her day by day, wondering if ever he should dare to breathe a word of the hopes that filled his heart, reading in her calm face and in the sisterly gentleness and fondness with which she treated him, how little conscious she was of the purpose that possessed his soul. Sometimes he paused and shrank from troubling the still waters of their sweet, calm friendship, but then again the thought of leaving her in her loneliness and isolation seemed too sad and mournful, if by any devotion and love he could lighten the burden of her sorrow, and bring back something of the lost happiness into her life. Haddon was very humble, very self-distrustful; he did not expect to accomplish much, but he felt that he would gladly lay down his life, if by that act he could do anything to comfort her. To die for her would, however, be purposeless: the next thing was to try and live for her.

And so one day, as they paced the lonely shore together, on a chill cloudy winter’s afternoon, he put his fate to the touch.

She had noticed his silence—his abstraction: he had not been quite himself all day. Presently they reached a sheltered nook amongst some rocks not far from the water’s edge, and she sat down, motioning him to do the same. She looked at him with gentle, friendly concern.

“Is anything the matter?” she asked. “Have you something on your mind?”

He turned his head, looked into her eyes, and answered:

“Yes.”

“Can I help you?” she continued, in the same sweet way. “You help me so often, that it is my turn to help you now if I can.”

He looked with a glance she could not altogether understand.

“Monica,” he said, “may I speak to you?—may I tell you something? I have tried to do so before, and have failed; but I ought not to go on longer without speaking. Have I your permission to tell you what is on my mind?”

He did not often call her by her Christian name: only in moments of excitement, when his soul was stirred within him. The unconscious way in which it dropped now from his lips told that he was deeply moved. A sort of vague uneasiness arose within her, but she looked into his troubled, resolute face, and answered:

“Tell me if you wish it, Haddon”—although she shrank, without knowing why, from the confession she was to hear.

“Monica,” he said, not looking at her, but out over the sea, and speaking with a manly resolution and fluency unusual with him, the outcome of a very earnest purpose, “I am going to speak to you at last, and I must ask you beforehand to pardon my presumption, of which I am as well aware as you can ever be. Monica, I think that no woman in the wide world is like you. I have thought so ever since I saw you first, in your bridal robes, standing beside Randolph in that little church over yonder. When I saw you then—nay, pardon me if I pain you; I should not have recalled the memory, and yet I cannot help it—I said within myself that you were one to be worshipped with the truest devotion of a man’s heart; and the more I saw of you in later life, the deeper did that feeling sink into my soul. He, your husband, had been as a brother to me, and to feel that I was thus brought near to you, admitted to friendship and to confidence, was a source of keen pleasure such as I can ill describe. You did not know your power over me, Monica. I hardly knew it myself; but I think I would at any time have laid down my life either for him or for you. I know I would that fatal night—but I must not pain you more. When I awoke, Monica, from that long fever, to find you watching beside me, to hear that he, my friend, was dead, and you left all alone in your desolation—Monica, Monica, how can I hope to express to you what I felt? It is not treachery to his memory—believe me, it is not. If I could call him back, ah! how gladly would I do it!—at the cost of my life if need be—but that can never, never be! I know I can never fill _his_ place. I know I am utterly unworthy of the boon I ask; but if a life-long devotion, if a love that will never change nor falter, if the ceaseless care of one, who is yours wholly and entirely, can ever help to fill the blank, can in ever so small a degree make up to you for that one irretrievable loss, believe me, it will be the greatest happiness I can ever know. Monica, need I say more? Have I said too much? I only ask leave to watch over you, to comfort you, to love you; I ask nothing for myself—only the right to do this. Can you not give it to me? God helping me, you shall never repent it if you do.”

A long pause followed this confession—this appeal. Monica’s face had expressed many fluctuating feelings as he had proceeded with his speech. Now it was full of a sort of divine compassion and tenderness: a look sometimes seen in a pictured saint or Madonna drawn by a master hand.

“You are so good,” she said, very low; “so very, very good; and it grieves me so sadly to give you pain.”

He turned his head and looked at her. His eyes darkened with sudden sorrow.

“I have spoken too soon,” he said, in the same gentle, self-contained way. “I have tried to be patient, but seeing you lonely and sad makes it so hard. I should have waited longer—it is only a year now since. Monica, do not think me hard or callous to say it, but time is a great softener—a great healer. I do not mean that you will ever forget; but years will go by, and you are still quite young, very young to live your life always alone. Think of the years that lie before you. Must they all be spent alone? Monica, do not answer me yet; but if in time to come—if you want a friend, a helper—let me—can you think of me? Ah! how can I say it? Can I ever be more to you than I am now? You understand: you have only to call me, to command me—I will come.”

He spoke with some agitation now, but it was quickly subdued. It seemed as if he would have left her, but she laid her hand upon his arm and detained him.

“Haddon,” she said, softly, “I am lonely and I do want a friend. You have been a friend to me always; I trust and love you as a brother. May I not do so always? Can you not be content with that? Must it end with us, that love and trust? I should miss it sorely if it were withdrawn.”

Her sweet, pleading face was turned towards him. There was a sort of struggle in the young man’s mind: then he answered quietly:

“It shall be so, if you wish it,” he said. “My chiefest wish is for your happiness. But——”

She checked him by a look.

“Haddon, I am Randolph’s wife!”

His eyes gave the reply his tongue would never have uttered. She answered as if he had spoken.

“Yes, he is dead. Did you think that made any difference? Ah, you do not understand. When I gave myself to Randolph, I gave myself for ever—not for a time only but for always. He is my husband. I am his wife. Nothing can change that.”

“Not even death?”

The words were a mere whisper; yet she heard them. It seemed as if a sudden ray of light shone upon the face she turned towards him. He was awed; he watched her in mute silence.

“Ah! no,” she said, very softly, “not death—death least of all. Death can only divide us, it cannot touch our love. Ah! you do not know, you do not understand. How can I make it clear to you? Love is like nothing else in the world—it is us, our very selves. _Somewhere_——” Monica clasped her hands together, and stretched them out before her towards the eternal ocean, with a gesture more eloquent than any words, whilst the light upon her face deepened in intensity every moment as her eyes fixed themselves upon the far horizon. “_Somewhere_ he is waiting for me to come to him—he, my husband, my love; and though he may not come back to me, I shall go to him in God’s good time, and when I join him in the great, eternal home, I must go to him as he left me—with nothing between us and our love; and there will be no parting there, no more death, and no more sea.”

Her words died away in silence; but her parted lips, her shining eyes, the light upon her face, spoke an eloquent language of their own. Her companion sat and looked at her in mute, breathless silence, not unmixed with awe.

He knew his cause was lost. He knew she could never, never be his; yet, strange to say, he was not saddened or cast down, for by this revelation of her innermost heart he felt himself uplifted and ennobled. His idol was not shattered. Monica was, as ever, enshrined in his heart—the one ideal woman to be worshipped, reverenced, adored. Even in this supreme hour of his life, when the airy fabric of his dreams was crumbling into dust about him, he had a perception that perhaps even thus it was best. He never could be worthy of her, and now he might still call himself her friend; had she not said so herself?

There was a long, long silence between them. Then he moved, kneeling on one knee before her, and taking her hand in his.